SOUTH OF THE BORDER

Violence against women 'pandemic' in Mexico

'So rife that there's no political cost for those who don't deal with the issue'

Published: 03/07/2014 at 6:27 PM

(Reuters) So many teenage girls turned up dead in a vacant field on the outskirts of Mexico City that people nicknamed it the “women’s dumping ground.”

They began showing up in 2006, usually left among piles of garbage. Some were victims of domestic violence, others of drug gangs that have seized control of entire neighborhoods in the gritty town of Ecatepec, northeast of the capital.

The lot has since been cleared and declared an ecological reserve. But its grisly past is not forgotten and the killings have only accelerated.